Moscow - The number of bodies found in a mass grave unearthed near the Chechen capital of Grozny has risen to 48, Interfax quoted the top prosecutor in the republic as saying yesterday.
Witnesses quoted by the human rights group Memorial this week suggested that the bodies in the mass grave were those of Chechen civilians killed by Russian troops, but a prosecutor, Mr Vsevolod Chernov, dismissed the charge.
"The majority of the dead were probably rebels," he was quoted as saying by Interfax, pointing to the type of clothes found on the corpses, and adding: "Many of them are in internationally-made camouflage and Turkish underwear." The previous official total of bodies in the grave had been 28.